Puff pieces in exchange for access to other important interviews – 31%

Blind items being reported in the news – 30%

Hit pieces – 21%

Rise of independent contributors versus on-staff media – 14%

More than two-thirds of respondents see no hope for the media, at least in the immediate future. A whopping 67 percent “believe ethics in journalism will be worse during the 2020 presidential campaign.”

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People also understand exactly how all this bad journalism damages the country. Almost two-thirds, 64 percent, say it exacerbates division and partisanship; 63 percent said it “fuels inaccuracies”; 60 percent said it incites hate; 57 percent said it incites fear.

Yes, our media are awful and the public know it. Get this… The group with the highest ethical rating, local print and online journalists, are considered ethical by only 40 percent.

Meanwhile, only 23 percent consider local TV reporters and anchors ethical, followed by 22 percent for national print and online journalists, and a deadly 15 percent for national TV anchors and reporters — 15 percent!!!

A plurality of 46 percent see journalism as less ethical now than it was in the past, while only 20 percent said the media are more ethical.

These are catastrophic numbers for any institution, much less one like the media that lives or dies based on integrity, goodwill, and moral authority.

But the media have worked overtime to lose the public trust, and losing that trust is the only real accomplishment they can point to over the last six years.